The Minnesota Wild (12-12-4) face the Pittsburgh Penguins (13-13-3) on the road tonight at PPG Paints Arena with two critical points on the line. The Wild have won three in a row while the Penguins have lost five of their past seven games.
The Wild are coming off back-to-back shootout wins over Western Conference opponents and hope to continue their momentum this week with four games on the schedule. The Wild won 3-2 over the Calgary Flames on Thursday and 2-1 over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday.
The Wild's lineup will be the same tonight as it was on Saturday. This is their third game without Jonas Brodin, who is on long-term injured reserve. Jared Spurgeon is also out for a third game in a row due to a day-to-day lower-body injury, but he is on the road trip with the Wild, so he could return Tuesday night in Boston.
Daemon Hunt is playing his second game in a row and seventh game this season, while Dakota Mermis and Vinni Lettieri are scratches again.
Five-on-five goals for % — Wild (54.05), Penguins (53.64)
Power play % — Wild (16.8), Penguins (12.9)
Penalty kill % — Penguins (81.1), Wild (73)
Even though the Penguins' power play is struggling, the Wild have to be more disciplined than they were on Saturday when they committed five infractions.
"Five is too many," head coach John Hynes said Saturday postgame. ... "If you're going to be on the right side of winning more often than not, then your penalty discipline and not taking as many penalties is going to be important. We'll certainly address it."
Wild's projected lines
Kaprizov — Eriksson Ek — Boldy
Johansson — Rossi — Zuccarello
Foligno — Gaudreau — Maroon
Duhaime — Dewar — Hartman
Defensive pairs:
Middleton — Faber
Goligoski — Bogosian
Merrill — Hunt
Projected starter: Gustavsson
Penguins projected lines
Jake Guentzel — Sidney Crosby — Rickard Rakell
Reilly Smith — Evgeni Malkin — Valtteri Puustinen
Drew O'Connor — Lars Eller — Radim Zohorna
Jansen Harkins — Noel Acciari — Jeff Carter
Defensive pairs:
Marcus Pettersson — Kris Letang
Ryan Graves — Erik Karlsson
John Ludvig — Chad Ruhwedel
Projected starter: Alex Nedeljkovic